Spatiotemporal changes in the size and shape of heat waves over North America

David Keellings (), Erin Bunting and Johanna Engström
Additional contact information
David Keellings: University of Alabama
Erin Bunting: University of Florida
Johanna Engström: University of Florida

Climatic Change, 2018, vol. 147, issue 1, No 13, 165-178

Abstract: Abstract Heat waves are occurring more frequently across the globe and are likely to increase in intensity and duration under climate change. Much work has already been completed on attributing causes of observed heat waves and on modeling their future occurrence, but such efforts are often lacking in exploration of spatial relationships. Based on principles of landscape ecology, we utilized fragmentation metrics to examine the spatiotemporal changes in heat wave shape and occurrence across North America. This methodological approach enables us to examine area, shape, perimeter, and other key metrics. The application of these shape metrics to high-resolution historical (1950–2013) climate data reveals that the total number and spatial extent of heat waves are increasing over the continent, but at an individual heat wave patch level, they are becoming significantly smaller in extent and more complex in shape, indicating that heat waves have become a more widespread and fragmented phenomena.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-018-2140-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:147:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-018-2140-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-018-2140-3

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().